Electronics, Digital Cameras, Tablets, and Smartphones contain many valuable metals and minerals. So valuable, in fact, that many companies will buy up any smartphone to get them. So when I first read about this I thought I would give it a try and see if getting Paid to Recycle Electronics had any merit.

So I looked online for companies that purchased used and broken electronics as I had a bunch of used cell phones just sitting in my office. And what I found was a little encouraging as a whole bunch of companies just popped off the page. These sites like Nextworth, BuyMyTronics, YouRenew and Gazelle will buy your old phone for cheap.

So I was encouraged on my chances and maybe thought someone could make a great second income from doing this. But then the rails fell off. I spent the next 30 minutes typing in phone and electronics types into their system only to find out my phones were only worth a dollar or so. Of all the phones I had I could have made a whopping three dollars. Not really worth anyone’s times.

I guess it turns out that the metals are not to valuable, more than having a newer phone that these companies can resell and these phones and electronics are the ones that get the most value. So I gave up on this idea, noble at first I thought, but stupid in the end. You are better off taking all of your old electronics to a superstore and spending your timecollecting aluminum cans, you’ll probably make a lot more!

Recycling Old Electronics Helps Out The Environment

This is true, and it should be the one good reason you take your electronics to a place to have them recycled. If you are not sure about where to take them then go to the EPA.gov site and they can show you where you can take them. They also have some compelling facts on why you should consider recycling. Did you know that according to the EPA:

Recycling one million laptops saves the energy equivalent to the electricity used by more than 3,500 US homes in a year.

For every million cell phones we recycle, 35 thousand pounds of copper, 772 pounds of silver, 75 pounds of gold, and 33 pounds of palladium can be recovered.